Re: Camp Petaluma Replacing SPRING Tower Park 4/18-23/17
Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 4:08 pm
I want everyone to know I am reading all these posts, and I am taking notes gleaning what I can and adding that to all the other input I am receiving that needs to be discussed with KOA Management.
This discussion can and probably will go on for sometime and because of that I think its important we all think about what we hope to accomplish and try and do that constructively.
I spent a couple years with John and several others putting together a convention which I believe was an awesome accomplishment. I thought I would be able to take a breather after the dust cleared. It didn't work out that way and I started right in on finding a replacement for Camp Delta even before the convention ended. Why because I love this club and my hobby, many of you have known me for over 30 years I consider many of you my extended family. I have friends in this hobby all over the world.
Is it so hard to think that as long as we are together having fun we should be happy. Well for me its that simple. Yeah I can be a butt head but the great thing is we are all family. So I continue to step up. Look at my plate!
On the topic of using military bases, as many know, I organized the Camp Roberts events for seven years working with Dirk Hale and the various command structures in charge of Roberts and Hunter Liggett. Those of us that attended these events had great fun. And I would say many like me miss Camp Roberts. The event was different than any other I have been to.
We would go out after breakfast and drive all the old roads and off-road areas in the back country on the ranges all day 7 or 8 hours. We roughed it by sleeping in the old barracks and cooking our meals in the old mess halls. This type of venue was great for a bunch of people that really wanted to explore the old ranges and really put their MVs to use in a off road and closed-to-civilian traffic environment. I think if you were to ask, most would say it was really not a family event or even a great swapmeet event. Don't get me wrong we had a few really understanding ladies and some sellers who didn't mind leaving there stuff behind while we were gone all day. Those dealers left behind in camp were in a ghost town while we were out having fun. Both Roberts and Hunter Liggett have RV campgrounds. The problem is they are a long way away from where the rest of the group and action will be. They both also have BOQ facilities that are very reasonably priced. These also are not near the mess were we watched movies played cards and hung out at night. Availability is determined by troop movements of course. Lots of parking and lots of open bay squad type restroom and shower facilities. Great fun for those that really don't mind being together in close quarters and having some awesome fun with the MV's.
On to the fairgrounds idea. I believe the MVCC could put something together at Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. So what would we gain and what would we loose. That's really how we look at finding a new home after Camp Delta at Tower Park. Well, John V and John N hit on a couple things like cost if we rented buildings. but a couple things were missed like the $10 parking fee if we did not rent the parking lot for the week which we would have to charge parking to pay back the rent and supply the attendants.
The full hookups at Pleasanton are on a blacktop with no trees, which is fine if it stays cool but what if it doesn't. The showers facilities are not going to work for a large group we would have to rent two units; that would be $3000 for the week. What about food and water? We would need to arrange for vendors to come in or dry camp the duration without water and power, we could rent power distribution for the walnut grove again there is a cost to recoup. Fairgrounds charge for everything you use with the idea the renting organization gets that money back by charging table and space fees as well as a entrance fee.
Finding a spot for our group is a balancing act and if your the one balancing this act, you have to pick the best venue with the least amount of loss as possible. In that case I am the one that found, visited and got us in KOA Petaluma. It took lots of work. And more trips from San Jose to that location than I want to say. I can't remember how many times I was out on the road driving to campgrounds only to get there and find a concrete jungle or worse a owner with what he thought was a gold mine.
It was not my intention to discourage anyone one whether a member or not from attending any MVCC event anyone that knows me knows I am against that. I want to grow our club as much as anyone else. I really thought Petaluma would work but what I am hearing is it probably won't. My problem is as President I have to listen to all the members concerns and consider what's the majority's thoughts are.
I visited campgrounds from the Sierra foothills out on Highway 49, all the way down to the Thousand Trails "Gold Mine" in San Benito near Monterey. I have to say after all that driving, I think it's time for some others to go look. It's a big area..Who knows, maybe there is another Tower Park out there.
Here is some food for thought.
The owner of Camp Petaluma is Chris Wood or Woody, as he likes to be called has told me, if we had the meet later in the year he would open the whole place up to us help us advertise the event. to that point I was surprised to see all the winter over campers in the flat Redwood Grove gone the week after we left when I went to my first after action meeting. I asked about the possibility of that happening a week earlier. They leave the first week of May and next year we are a week later in April than this year the last week. Woody mentioned three day visitors passes with a discount, is that enough, we would have to sell them I am trying to negotiate some other things like kids under 16 for free. Most of our issues will fall back on parking and his need to choke the gate to keep the onsite need for parking to a minimum. On the shuttle, we used his vehicles and drivers. He charged us $500 a day for two days. I negotiated for $500 of the gate fees, so we only paid KOA $500. That came from the MVCC Treasury. We cannot afford to have shuttles with his cost for four days. And we can not use membership dues (treasury) to shuttle non members. We need to come up with some parking and internal solution for shuttling if that parking is off site. This would not be a problem later in the year because the two pastures would be dry. We do not have their use in April. The MVCC would have to collect a fee to recoup the cost of the shuttles I did negotiate the use of the lot by the Henny Penny from its owner (not the Henny Penny) and if we used the trailer storage area Woody gave us we could make this work. I was told we had 300 visitors pay for day use Friday and 500 on Saturday. That was the gate.
To accomplish tasks like manning a gate and shuttling people into the KOA we will need team work. For this kind of work most clubs like ours rely on volunteers.
The only way to completely eliminate the hilly terrain is to find a new venue. There are work arounds if you can't walk the hills, you have to ride. Sounds like that is getting some push back as well.
I would like to restate that I am not at all in anyway against non members attending our events. The more the merrier. Day use fee and parking need to be addressed.
Lastly Joann told me the day we pulled out Sunday we have a wait list for spots with 41 names. Woody has told me that right around 50% has put rollover money on there 2018 spots. That was a week ago last Thursday.
This is an election year all the board positions are on the ballot. We had a very large group at the general membership meeting we had no volunteers/nominations to run for the board.
We are a very small group working for a very large group your input and help are always welcome.
This discussion can and probably will go on for sometime and because of that I think its important we all think about what we hope to accomplish and try and do that constructively.
I spent a couple years with John and several others putting together a convention which I believe was an awesome accomplishment. I thought I would be able to take a breather after the dust cleared. It didn't work out that way and I started right in on finding a replacement for Camp Delta even before the convention ended. Why because I love this club and my hobby, many of you have known me for over 30 years I consider many of you my extended family. I have friends in this hobby all over the world.
Is it so hard to think that as long as we are together having fun we should be happy. Well for me its that simple. Yeah I can be a butt head but the great thing is we are all family. So I continue to step up. Look at my plate!
On the topic of using military bases, as many know, I organized the Camp Roberts events for seven years working with Dirk Hale and the various command structures in charge of Roberts and Hunter Liggett. Those of us that attended these events had great fun. And I would say many like me miss Camp Roberts. The event was different than any other I have been to.
We would go out after breakfast and drive all the old roads and off-road areas in the back country on the ranges all day 7 or 8 hours. We roughed it by sleeping in the old barracks and cooking our meals in the old mess halls. This type of venue was great for a bunch of people that really wanted to explore the old ranges and really put their MVs to use in a off road and closed-to-civilian traffic environment. I think if you were to ask, most would say it was really not a family event or even a great swapmeet event. Don't get me wrong we had a few really understanding ladies and some sellers who didn't mind leaving there stuff behind while we were gone all day. Those dealers left behind in camp were in a ghost town while we were out having fun. Both Roberts and Hunter Liggett have RV campgrounds. The problem is they are a long way away from where the rest of the group and action will be. They both also have BOQ facilities that are very reasonably priced. These also are not near the mess were we watched movies played cards and hung out at night. Availability is determined by troop movements of course. Lots of parking and lots of open bay squad type restroom and shower facilities. Great fun for those that really don't mind being together in close quarters and having some awesome fun with the MV's.
On to the fairgrounds idea. I believe the MVCC could put something together at Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. So what would we gain and what would we loose. That's really how we look at finding a new home after Camp Delta at Tower Park. Well, John V and John N hit on a couple things like cost if we rented buildings. but a couple things were missed like the $10 parking fee if we did not rent the parking lot for the week which we would have to charge parking to pay back the rent and supply the attendants.
The full hookups at Pleasanton are on a blacktop with no trees, which is fine if it stays cool but what if it doesn't. The showers facilities are not going to work for a large group we would have to rent two units; that would be $3000 for the week. What about food and water? We would need to arrange for vendors to come in or dry camp the duration without water and power, we could rent power distribution for the walnut grove again there is a cost to recoup. Fairgrounds charge for everything you use with the idea the renting organization gets that money back by charging table and space fees as well as a entrance fee.
Finding a spot for our group is a balancing act and if your the one balancing this act, you have to pick the best venue with the least amount of loss as possible. In that case I am the one that found, visited and got us in KOA Petaluma. It took lots of work. And more trips from San Jose to that location than I want to say. I can't remember how many times I was out on the road driving to campgrounds only to get there and find a concrete jungle or worse a owner with what he thought was a gold mine.
It was not my intention to discourage anyone one whether a member or not from attending any MVCC event anyone that knows me knows I am against that. I want to grow our club as much as anyone else. I really thought Petaluma would work but what I am hearing is it probably won't. My problem is as President I have to listen to all the members concerns and consider what's the majority's thoughts are.
I visited campgrounds from the Sierra foothills out on Highway 49, all the way down to the Thousand Trails "Gold Mine" in San Benito near Monterey. I have to say after all that driving, I think it's time for some others to go look. It's a big area..Who knows, maybe there is another Tower Park out there.
Here is some food for thought.
The owner of Camp Petaluma is Chris Wood or Woody, as he likes to be called has told me, if we had the meet later in the year he would open the whole place up to us help us advertise the event. to that point I was surprised to see all the winter over campers in the flat Redwood Grove gone the week after we left when I went to my first after action meeting. I asked about the possibility of that happening a week earlier. They leave the first week of May and next year we are a week later in April than this year the last week. Woody mentioned three day visitors passes with a discount, is that enough, we would have to sell them I am trying to negotiate some other things like kids under 16 for free. Most of our issues will fall back on parking and his need to choke the gate to keep the onsite need for parking to a minimum. On the shuttle, we used his vehicles and drivers. He charged us $500 a day for two days. I negotiated for $500 of the gate fees, so we only paid KOA $500. That came from the MVCC Treasury. We cannot afford to have shuttles with his cost for four days. And we can not use membership dues (treasury) to shuttle non members. We need to come up with some parking and internal solution for shuttling if that parking is off site. This would not be a problem later in the year because the two pastures would be dry. We do not have their use in April. The MVCC would have to collect a fee to recoup the cost of the shuttles I did negotiate the use of the lot by the Henny Penny from its owner (not the Henny Penny) and if we used the trailer storage area Woody gave us we could make this work. I was told we had 300 visitors pay for day use Friday and 500 on Saturday. That was the gate.
To accomplish tasks like manning a gate and shuttling people into the KOA we will need team work. For this kind of work most clubs like ours rely on volunteers.
The only way to completely eliminate the hilly terrain is to find a new venue. There are work arounds if you can't walk the hills, you have to ride. Sounds like that is getting some push back as well.
I would like to restate that I am not at all in anyway against non members attending our events. The more the merrier. Day use fee and parking need to be addressed.
Lastly Joann told me the day we pulled out Sunday we have a wait list for spots with 41 names. Woody has told me that right around 50% has put rollover money on there 2018 spots. That was a week ago last Thursday.
This is an election year all the board positions are on the ballot. We had a very large group at the general membership meeting we had no volunteers/nominations to run for the board.
We are a very small group working for a very large group your input and help are always welcome.